Silent Hunter 5 DRM

I was looking forward to this title until I learnt the following;Silent Hunter 5 will require your PC to be connected to the internet continually if you want to play the game and save your patrols. If your connection to UbiSoft goes down 'mid-patrol', the game will pause after a time until you can (or cannot) restore the connection.

Additionally, savegames will not be saved on your PC but will be stored on the Ubisoft servers.

The suggestion is that this is the 'thin edge of the wedge' in moving singleplayer PC gaming towards wholly subscription based play where you don't buy the game, you just buy a subscription period and login to play.

This seems like extra risk for the legitimate purchaser to me - I've always had to contend with crash bugs in these sorts of games - it goes with the territory - but now there's the risk of my internet connection going down as well and stopping me from playing. Great.

Predictably and deservedly, Ubisoft are copping a lot of heat. It's certainly a dealbreaker for me...

I don't use the internet at home so a large number of newer games I am unable to play in single player mode if I purchase them at the store for this very reason, good thing I'm not interested in too many games then....

Would be nice if single player games or games with a single player component did not require an internet connection...but I think I'm in the tiny minority when it comes to users with no internet connection on their gaming pc.

you don't buy the game, you just buy a subscription period and login to play.

Well, technically it's been that way for any title that requires online authentication. Since the servers can and do get taken down at the publishers whim, one currently pays a one-time fee for undisclosed limited access to a game. And nobody seems to care, so if Ubi can get away with this then more power to 'em... literally...

Still, you just know there will be a crack that is able to create save games locally.

In the past, Battle.net was presented as a multiplayer option off to the side, off of the main menu of Blizzard Entertainment titles. That is all changing. With the new Battle.net experience, the service and the game are now interwoven into one experience. Whether you are in single-player or multiplayer StarCraft II, you are always connected, and enjoy a bevy of new and enhanced functionality.

Most hardcore gamers are online 99% of the time they play games anyway.

Let's just lose a couple of words in that sentence and see how well it holds up shall we?

gamers are online 99% of the time they play games anyway.

See the first version may be close to the truth (for 'hardcore gamers' in heavily connected countries like the USA), but the second version is what Ubisoft seems to be banking on as being the situation here/now/all over the planet.

Dont buy that game until a big fan group made a mod.SH3 was a buggy crap game with nice water fx. SH4 was a buggy crap game with water fx. Both games arent worth your time, if you like Sub Sims and havent downloaded tons of mods.Why should be SH5 any better? Because nice DX10 water?

I'd like to support the SH series devs - as it's the best (and pretty much only) WW2 subsim series out there.

I think you're being a bit OTT negative about new releases. It's true that the mod community really pick up the slack with SH releases but I am interested in this new first person virtual sub approach. Its always struck me as too easy that you can call up stations instantly at the press of a button - rather than having to physically make your way to the conning tower, control room etc..

Looks like Starcraft 2 is going the same direction, with the new battle.net "always connected" even in single-player mode:

I don't believe that is for DRM purposes, but more or less being connected to the community, even while playing single-player.

ex. being able to chat with your buddies, and receive multiplayer game invites. Did it state anywhere that it's a requirement for offline play? I figured it was going the same route as Steam does with regards to online connectivity.

For the case of Ubisoft, they're doing the same thing as described for Silent Hunter 5, for Assassin's Creed 2. It's stupid, and it'll go to prove the point further that pirates always get the better end of the stick as there'll likely be a crack produced for offline saving (and the usual no-DRM/CD business) within a week or two.

That, and I don't want to wait ages for my slow connection to upload a 2-16mb save file everytime my game hits auto-save. I'll just stick to gaming on my PS3 until publishers on PC get a grip with reality.

I don't pirate games, but if in a month or so after release Ubisoft haven't given up on this form of punitive DRM and pirates have a reliable crack available to allow for offline play, I'll buy the game and use the crack. Plain and simple.